Good 50's Films: Titanic

1953 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Jean Negulesco

Starring
Clifton Webb
Barbara Stanwyck
Robert Wagner
Audrey Dalton
Richard Basehart
Thelma Ritter
Brian Aherne
Harper Carter
Frances Bergen
Edmund Purdom

Everyone, of course, knows of James Cameron's mammoth 1997 production of Titanic.  There's never been a telling of the sinking of the unsinkable ship that's ever been any better nor is there ever likely to be a better one.  A mere three years after the sinking, an Italian company made of silent version and in 1943 there was a German propaganda film.

To my knowledge, the first American film on the subject is the one we're honoring today, one I dearly loved from the moment I first saw it and including yesterday when I watched it again.  This 1953 version is a pretty damned good one and it starred two glorious actors of the time in unusual roles for both of them.

Clifton Webb was the focus of how this production got made.  His boss, Fox's Darryl F. Zanuck (it sure seems we mention him a lot), said one day to two of the film's eventual three writers... I have Clifton Webb under contract and we have Cinemascope and I want to do something big.  Don't make Clifton a clown.  I want him to start a new career as a character actor.  Use all the young people we have on the lot, like Audrey Dalton and Robert Wagner. 

In the spirit of do something big, someone obviously realized it'd been 41 years since the actual disaster and there'd never been an American film about it and wouldn't that be big enough?

No matter which version of Titanic one sees, it seems the adrenaline junkies just want the ship to hit that damned iceberg and let's get on with the mayhem and forget the corny stories of the passengers.  Now really, aj's, let's get real.  What kind of a story would we have if we started with the collision?  How could one get behind the plight of the passengers if we didn't know something about them?

There's always been a lot of misinformation about the famous ship and one item that falls into that category is that Titanic was full.  It was not. But since the myth was part of the fun of the storytelling, that's why Leo DiCaprio in the 1997 version won his ticket in a card game.  In the 1953 version, Webb, desperate to reunite with his wife who is on board and leaving him for good, gives an immigrant family big bucks for one of their tickets.

Webb plays Richard Sturges, a wealthy American expatriate who tends to put down American ways in favor of European aristocracy.  His wife, Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) has had enough of it and hasn't told him that she is leaving him for her childhood home in Michigan.  In tow are her two children who simply think they are going for a visit.  Annette (Audrey Dalton) is 17, terribly attached to her father and his snobbish ways.  She and her mother don't get along so well.  Then there's 14-year old Norman (Harper Carter), the apple of both parents' eyes, who is earnest and compliant and desperate to be a grownup.

Annette falls for a full-of-himself college boy, Giff (Robert Wagner).  Their relationship provides the film's lighter moments.  Thelma Ritter appears as a Molly Brown-type character (there were problems with Brown's estate that prevented the use of her name).  Brian Aherne plays E.J. Smith, the ship's captain, and Richard Basehart is an alcoholic, defrocked priest.  Future Fox B actor, Edmund Purdom, made his film debut as a second officer.

Richard doesn't spend much time trying to woo back his wife but he is determined to not lose his children and husband and wife hassle over that.  After a clash in their cabin over this very issue, Julia tells Richard something that shakes him to his core.  What makes it particularly interesting is that nothing could shake Richard to his core and it's likely the same could be said about Webb.  You can discover it in the preview below.

Remembering that women and children filled the lifeboats, one of the most touching scenes comes when Richard and Julia say goodbye to one another.  They kiss and hug and apologize for not keeping their relationship strong.  I noticed I'm still teary-eyed watching it.  What is particularly interesting to me is how tender both actors are in this scene.  Let's not forget that neither is particularly known for playing characters with great tenderness.

One of the dramatic moments as the lifeboats are being lowered comes when young Norman, aboard with his mother and sister, gives up his seat to an older woman and returns to the ship to find his father.  Their reunion is another touching scene and their fate sealed. 

A publicity shot of the main cast

Webb apparently requested Stanwyck to play his wife.  That must have taken some doing since she was not under contract to Fox and plenty of good actresses were.  They got along famously.  He called her his favorite American lesbian.  She also usually played opposite he-men types which he certainly wasn't.  Neither played parents very often and he never played a married man and a parent in so dramatic a film.  But they were both exquisite.

I thought Zanuck's statement of I want to start him (Webb) in a new career as a character actor was odd because, good and memorable as Webb always was, he was always a character actor.  If anything, Titanic had him flirting with leading man status.

Wagner was great fun and upbeat and so good-looking in this film.  He has a dramatic turn as one lifeboat is stuck as it's being lowered.  He climbs on the ropes to cut one and is knocked unconscious into the sea.  Lucky chap gets on a lifeboat.  I saw all of his films in the 50's.  Unfortunately I haven't much cared for him since 1981.

Dalton never generated much excitement as an actress and had a brief career but Fox was certainly in her corner in 1953.  Harper Carter was terrific as the overly-eager son but this is the only film I've ever seen with him.  Ritter, of course, was always a delight.  It was a perfect role for her.

The special effects of 1953 were not what they would one day become, of course, but I found the scenes from hitting the iceberg until the sinking to be good.  As a young kid, of course, I was completely enthralled.  Few moments in cinematic history for excitement, however, have ever topped the last quarter of the 1997 version.

Popular Fox director Jean Negulesco knew his way around any story the studio threw his way.  He worked with huge stars and was able to massage those egos and get on with the business of making movies.  The film's three writers would win an Oscar.

Wagner is likely a great deal of the reason it was a happy set.  He was knowledgeable of and quite enamored of older stars and he courted their favor and massaged their egos.  He and Webb had become good personal friends as a result of working on the John Phillip Sousa bio, Stars and Stripes Forever, a year earlier. Wagner also claimed in his autobiography a few years back that he and Stanwyck enjoyed a four-year romantic relationship that began during the filming.

If I had any complaint at all, it would be that Webb says something to Stanwyck about her returning to MackiNAC.  While the upper peninsula area is spelled that way, it is pronounced MackiNAW.  Take the Oscar back.

Here's that preview:

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